on birds in London and Suburbia.



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tabulate a list of species or supply dates, because I am unfortunately

so placed that I am well away from any notes of reference ; but as

they occur to mind I will mention birds that have mostly been first

discovered by ear in the course of my daily business walks in the

suburbs, or before breakfast, or at night in my garden, or in the

course of an evening stroll.


The Cuckoo on commons as a passing migrant has occurred

almost every spring, and the Kingfisher rarely as an autumn quick

passage migrant on ponds, ornamental lakes, or streams. The Swift,

of course, is quite common, and in one place where a filthy paint mill

lies next a little stream in a thickly populated district where train

lines rush tearing by day and night, large flocks of these weird birds

can be watched at close quarters dashing almost in one’s face when

watched from a foot bridge near by. Tawny Owls are much more

common in certain parts of suburbia than one imagines, and I have

watched their gradually pushing out further afield. In an old place

on the edge of Tooting Bee Common a number of these birds were

most conspicuous o’ nights. I have seen them also in an asylum

garden at Peckham on a late winter afternoon, and over and in my

own garden at Forest Hill, which is only twenty minutes by train

from London Bridge Station. On Tooting Bee Common at night I

have seen a Barn and a Long-eared Owl, and a Long-eared Owl in a

copse near my own home. A Barn Owl once fluttered round the

bandstand one night at the White City, and a Nightjar almost hit me

in the face there the next season. A bird of this species caused me

nearly to be knocked down one early summer’s evening in Tooting

High Road, and a friend of mine who rode a bicycle said he also saw

the bird hawking moths in front of his light. Herons frequently

pass over, and one is almost by instinct compelled to look up when a

heron is passing. These, except in the case of passing migrants, are

often young birds from Richmond Park, and for years I have passed

a spot near Mortlake at the same time as a heron or herons came

over and alighted on the mud on the opposite bank. Barnes Common

always has its two pairs or more of Carrion crows, a bird which I

have seen in pairs, breeding or otherwise, in several suburban spots

and near my own garden. Jackdaws come over with the rooks, and

a large colony breeds still not so many minutes from London Bridge


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